Before Woman
by Poison Ivory
Summary: "She's always hated to see couples in love..."


Author's Note: This was a funky idea that came to me while trying to sleep…my muse likes to come out then and bother me.  My favorite notes are the ones I've jotted down in the dark, half-asleep, that are barely legible and completely incoherent in the morning.  They rock.  Anyway, I started thinking about this…and then I wrote it.  Yeah.  Feel free to hate it…I think it's missing something, anyway.  But read it before you just write it off…it's not about my usual characters…

Disclaimer: Come on.  After all this time, you really think I own Hey Arnold!?  You're just a silly…a big, fat silly…

Before Woman

            It's a sweltering July afternoon.  The woman on the bus leans her head against the window, thinks the better of it, sits up straight.  She uncrosses and recrosses her long legs in the other direction, wrinkling her nose at the sound of sticky flesh separating.  Carefully, almost modestly, she tugs the hem of her short skirt down, just a little.  It was only this morning that she discovered cellulite on her upper thighs, and she wants to prevent others from making that discovery.

            Cellulite.  How can it be?  She's not that old, anyway.  Not yet, at least.

            Glancing up, she sees a man watching her.  He's standing, though there are plenty of available seats on the bus.  He's maybe forty, forty-five—somewhere in that range.  He wears a dark gray Armani knockoff and a watch he probably bought from a vendor on the street.  His hair is parted way over to the side and combed over the growing bald spot on the top of his head.  His knuckles grip the pole tightly as the bus swerves and bounces, and she sees dampness when his hand slides.  His eyes are fixed on her knees, on the several inches of thigh showing beneath her green skirt, and sweat is beading on his upper lip.

            She guesses that he has a wife, a frazzled "career woman"—maybe a real estate agent or an elementary school teacher—and two kids.  Maybe more.  Maybe a dog and a sedate gray four-door car.  A Nova, in the shop for one of its frequent repairs, which is why he's taking the bus.  She usually recognizes the regulars.

            She knows he's married, settled, has a family, because only married men look at her that way.  So desperately.  So hungrily.  So pathetically sad.

            Marriage.  What an institution.  She has to laugh at it, though she has to admit her cheap, tiny ring got her through a tough time when she pawned it three years ago.  She'd sworn she'd never sell it, no matter how hard up she got, because as long as she had it, she could still go back to him.  But she's never going back.

            She glances back up at the man watching at her, meets his eyes.  She smiles.  Might as well toy with him for a little bit.  There's still a few more stops to go, and the ride is getting boring.

            His eyes widen, in shock that she's actually looking at _him_.  She knows how she looks to him.  A pretty young thing—or at least _he_ thinks so—in a skimpy white tank top, short, tight skirt, hot little body, making eyes at _him_, a much older, rather unimpressive man.  She lowers her lashes demurely, purses her lips a little to make sure he knows she's looking at him—and why.  She scoots over a little, making room for him in the adjoining seat, flits her eyes at it to call it to his attention.

            Stumbling over himself in his eagerness, he comes over to her and sits down next to her.  She can just imagine his thoughts—maybe he isn't over the hill yet, maybe he's still quite the stud.  She can't help but find a sick pleasure in teasing men like him.

            "Hi, there," he says with an awkward grin.  _Hi, there?_  Ugh.  She'd like to throw him out a window right now.  Still…

            She's doing a good thing, she reasons.  She'll draw him out, put him in his place, and he'll go home to his wife a reformed and repentant man.  The diamond glittering on his left hand confirms her theory.

            "Hi, yourself," she purrs.  Her voice is light and fresh, but the cigarettes she devours daily have lent a growl to it, a hell kitten whisper that she knows makes men do absolutely anything she demands.  She never smoked before she'd married.

            He's obviously fumbling for a follow up to his fan_tas_tic opener.  "Do you live around here?" he asks finally, sweating profusely now.

            "Not far," she replies, a small, cool smile playing around her expertly-pouting lips.  "What's your name?"

            He looks taken aback.  "My name?  Uh…Arnold.  Arnold James."

            _Arnold._  The game is suddenly sour.  Her feelings must show on her face, because he stammers as he continues, even more than before.  "A-a-and yours?  Y-your name?"

            She reaches up suddenly, presses the Stop Request strip.  As the bus slows, she stands, tries to gather up her carefully crafted persona again.  She nods perfunctorily at him as she walks the few steps towards the back exit of the bus.

            "Wait!" he says ineffectually, starting to rise.

            Her foot is on the stairs.  She half-turns, smiles a little.  "_My_ name?" she asks.  

He nods.  She flips a strand of shoulder-length red hair behind her shoulder.

"My name is Lila."

The doors close on his disappointed, sadly aging face.

Lila watches the bus go before walking after it.  Her apartment is a few blocks from here still, and her shoes are not the best for walking in—especially in this kind of neighborhood, even in the day—but the name Arnold has unsettled her.

Her first broken heart was an Arnold.

Oh, they were young, but even so, she'd done a number on him.  He'd had a crush on her for three years when she ripped his heart from his body and did a little jig on it.  _It's my Irish blood_, she thinks, ruefully acknowledging her copper hair, her green-gray eyes, the freckles scattered across her tilted nose.  _And my name_.

Arnold was her training wheels in affairs of the heart.  He'd been smitten with her since they were nine years old, for some silly reason even she couldn't remember.  At first she'd tried hard to set him straight.  In the vernacular of the time, she didn't _like_ him like him, she just liked him.  But the boy wouldn't take no for an answer.  It was one of his charms.

And then it got to be a game.  To see how high she could get his hopes before dropping the bomb.  She'd sit with him at lunch or on the school bus, compliment him on…oh, just about anything she could think of…give him those private little smiles she was so good at—and then when he asked how she felt about him, as he always did, she'd tell him that he was just a friend.  Again.

And his sweet little face would fall, and a shadow would come over those day-dreamy eyes of his, and he would walk away, shoulders hunched, looking like one of those dogs people abandoned by the side of the road when they outgrew their cute little puppy years.  And he'd be downhearted and lackluster for the rest of the day, sometimes longer.

The power was addictive.

Always, after those sessions, she'd feel a thrill of control, of being at the helm.  And then she'd feel a horrible, horrible rush of guilt.  How could she possibly take pleasure in making someone else feel miserable?  She was such a _nice_ girl, after all.  Who did she think she was?

And then she'd see Her.

Her.  Helga.  The swaggering, overbearing, noxious hellcat in pink.  Ugly, and mean, and petty, and dishonest, and the least feminine creature Lila had ever met.  Also brilliant and passionate and promising and strong and a truly, truly good person, all of which Lila was not.

Lila had no reason to feel jealous of Helga.  None at all.  Helga was ugly, with that thick black unibrow and those long, skinny arms and legs and that permanent scowl—Lila was probably the prettiest girl in their class, maybe the school.  Helga was unhappy, that much was obvious to the naked eye—Lila was as bright as a daisy.  And _everyone_ liked Lila, loved her even—no one liked Helga.  Well, except her best friend and servant, Phoebe.

And Arnold.

It was that last part that ripped Lila up inside.  She knew that Helga loved Arnold—she'd known before Helga confessed it to her.  Before she'd _forced_ Helga to confess it.  But it was an inexplicable, answering spark in Arnold's eyes that even Lila's best efforts couldn't draw out that kept her trying.  Just what did he see in her?  What was his permanent fixation on this ugly, mean little girl in a pink bow?  Lila had to admit it to herself—she was jealous of the feelings Arnold had for Helga.

Or was she jealous of the feelings Helga had for Arnold?

Was she capable of love like that?

She was afraid to find out.

She'd given Arnold up as a lost cause when they were twelve and completely, irrefutably, shredded his heart.  Let Helga patch up _that_ little mess.  Good luck to her.  Lila was on to greener pastures.

A wolf whistle to her right distracts her from her thoughts.  Several young men, all probably five years younger than her, if not more, are lounging in front of the deli.  They watch her progress avidly, calling out comments that would make most blush.

Not her.  Not Lila.  She winks at them and struts past, holding her head high.  They go into further ecstasies of noise, howling like dogs.  God, she feels so cheap…

…and so good.

Her guilt left her long ago, at possibly the most important discovery of her life, better than her sensuality, better than her infertility.  Her name.

_Lila._  It was not the name of a farm girl.  No one in Pleasantville, where she'd been born, had a name anything like it, or in Brooklyn, where she'd moved when she was nine.  They were provincial names in Pleasantville—names like Mary Sue.  Betty Ann.  Sara Jane.  In Hillside they were stronger, women's names instead of girls'.  Helga.  Rhonda.  Ruth.

But _Lila_.  It was so slinky, so sensual off the tongue.  _Liiiiii-la._  Like Lola, or Lolita.  A dirty name.  A sexual name.  Not a name for her pristine checkered blouse and flawless pigtails.

So she'd looked it up.  And found what she'd always had the opportunity to learn, had she stayed awake in Sunday school.  Lila.  A derivative of Lilith.  Adam's first wife.

The succubus.

The demoness.  The temptress.  The one before Eve, before woman.  _Lila_.  The devil's consort.

A creature made expressly for sexual pleasure and temptation.

And here she'd always thought it had something to do with lilies.

It had helped her understand some things, come to terms with them.  Like the fact that even at the very beginning of puberty (which came early for her) there had been a sway in her walk, an impractical side-to-side movement that the other girls scoffed at and the boys were fascinated by.  Even the snakeskin sandals she wears today, with their pencil-thin four-inch heels, do nothing to minimize the motion of her hips.  But it doesn't bother her anymore.  She was born to seduce.

Maybe if she'd had a mother, a female figure around the house, it would have tempered her associations with her namesake.  But she didn't.  So the way she looked at it, she had some pretty big shoes to fill.

Arnold was the first.  But there were more—many more.

She reaches her building, a pile of moldy gray stones sandwiched between ugly building after ugly building.  The front door, which is mostly glass, was shattered three weeks ago, and the landlord hasn't replaced it yet.  Still, she unlocks the doorframe, feeling ridiculous as she walks through and unlocks the heavy steel door at the bottom of the stairs.

It's a three-story climb, and her feet are sore by the time she reaches the top.  She groans slightly as she lets herself into her apartment.  As always, she shuts her eyes as she walks in, hoping to find something new and exciting when she opens them.  But no—the room that encompasses dining room, bedroom, living room, and kitchen is the same as always—dingy and depressing, devoid of personality.  Neither of her two chairs match the tiny table.  The only other furniture is the narrow bed, the two-person sofa.  The walls are faded and cracked, with only one painting hung on them.

She drops her purse on the floor and suddenly joins it, sitting cross-legged as she removes her sandals.  They're a set of perfectly matched monstrosities, all appearance and no comfort, but those are the only kinds of shoes she wears.  She examines the blister developing on her right heel gingerly.  She only hopes it won't scar.  Scars are unattractive.

Sighing, she rises and crosses to open a window—she can't afford air conditioning.  Though she works at a trendy boutique uptown a little ways, the rent alone sucks up the majority of her salary.  Living in New York is a killer—but she couldn't live anywhere else, not anymore.  She grew too used to urban life during her years in Brooklyn.

Ah, Brooklyn.  She remembers her other conquests there.  Sid, Stinky, Lorenzo, Curly…they all lost their hearts to her.  Several names she can't remember, many in high school.  Only three from the old gang slipped between her fingers.  Gerald—he'd never liked her, and he was far too enamored with that bookworm Phoebe to see anyone else.  Harold—and she still has no idea how _that_ one slipped through her fingers, she'd had him _here_…  And Brainy, of course, but she wasn't touching him, he'd been in love with Helga as long as Helga'd been in love with Arnold.

She grits her teeth.  Why does she keep remembering those two?  Bad enough Helga's face taunts her from every window display in every bookstore in the city.  Bad enough that she has only to turn on the news to see coverage of the girl's meteoric rise in politics, loving husband Arnold by her side, the philanthropist/anthropologist…and soon to be First Husband, if the rumors were right.

That's all she needs.  _Helga_ as her president.  She'll move to Japan, first.  For one, it reminds her that the cut-off age for presidents is thirty-five.  And if Helga's thirty-five, that makes Lila…well, she stopped counting birthdays a long time ago.  And Helga's rise rankles her for another reason.  She'll have to see them everywhere…

She's always hated to see couples in love.

Besides, seeing Arnold brings back more than just her first conquest.

It brings back her first husband.

She'd married Arnie not long after high school.  She was never college material anyway, and she'd been longing for the farm for some time—or so she thought.  Maybe there were two of her—the minute she'd left Pleasantville, she dreamt of nothing but horses, ploughs, and wheat fields, but the minute she'd returned, she'd wanted off.

Arnie was an okay guy.  Sure, he'd had weird habits, but those didn't put her off—she had a few of her own.  There was a certain charming simplicity about him, a rustic lack of sophistication that put her at ease.  She wouldn't have to always be thinking around him to keep one step ahead of him at all times.  She enjoyed being married to the first guy she'd actually been honestly _interested _in.  And once he'd gotten over his ridiculous obsession with Helga—what _was_ it with that girl?—he'd been willing to sell his soul for a smile from Lila.

And—this was a little secret of hers, but it always brought a wry smile to her face—he was a real stallion in bed.  She'd always suspected it ran in the family, but she'd never quite been sure.  Even Helga didn't know how close she'd been to finding out, though…

She'd gone absolutely stir crazy on the farm.  Oh, sure, she'd stuck it out for a while.  She was the picture of domestic tranquility for five whole years.  Five years!  Cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner—huge meals, because it took a lot to feed a man who was working in the fields eighteen hours a day.  Cleaning the house, gathering eggs, feeding the livestock, darning Arnie's socks because they couldn't afford to buy new ones.  Even helping with the "men's jobs" because they knew by now they'd never have sons to pitch in, and they couldn't afford to hire a lot of help.  Catering to his every whim.

But they'd been right in Hillside when they'd warned her, after she'd announced the engagement.

Arnie was dull as dirt.

And so was life on the farm.  Her appearance plummeted.  In Hillside, she'd been called beautiful, stunning, ravishing, gorgeous, striking, dazzling, and "God's greatest achievement" (that was her personal favorite).  Now the best she could hope for was for some farm hand to comment that she was looking "right purty this mornin'."  She did the best she could, but exhaustion, privation, and boredom do not do wonders for the looks of the average young woman.

Oh, but she struggled.  Ugliness and Age were her enemies, and she set out to do battle with a skillful hand and an appraising eye.  She watched her figure, so as to avoid getting dumpy, like most farmers' wives she knew.  She wore gloves to wash dishes, an unheard of thing in these backwoods.  She even insisted on using special soap for sensitive skin, instead of the huge block of rock-hard, abrasive stuff Arnie got for $1.99 at the general store.  She knew there were whispers about her "finicky-ness," her "uppity city ways," but she didn't care.  _Lilith _had always been beautiful.  _Lilith _had always been young.  All would be sacrificed in the name of beauty.  _Vanity, thy name is Lila._

And it seemed a shame to let all that beauty go to waste on one man, one loyal and stamina-filled but nevertheless dull as dirt—_duller_, even—man.  So she let her wide-set green-gray eyes, so full of innocence tempered with a knowing glint, begin to wander across the well-toned chests and arms of other men who worked on Arnie's farm.  (She had begun to think of it as _Arnie's_ farm, rather than _theirs_.)

At first it was just flirting.  She would brush a muscular arm, giggle fetchingly, shoot a glance beneath thick, lowered lashes.  Arnie didn't notice, or if he did, he chose not to comment.  Lila suspected it was the former, however.  She hadn't married the most astute of men, somewhat intentionally.

And then there came the night, that fifth year, when Arnie had been caught at another farm miles away when a storm broke.  He'd elected to stay the night.  And Lila…well, she'd never liked sleeping alone, and there were several young men on the farm, hired hands, all pretty much enamored with her.  The only difficult part of the decision was choosing which man.

But she hadn't really wavered all that much past the line of fidelity—until Arnold came.

He'd been like a fresh breath of air on the farm.  Lila was so sick and tired of the same old, familiar faces, day after day after day.  And then Arnie announced one morning, in that monotone way of his, that Arnold was coming to visit that very day.  The boy—no, the _man_, Lila reminded himself—after all, he was twenty-three, although she didn't like to be reminded of that, because it was her age too—the man had graduated with all honors and whatnot from some almost-an-Ivy-but-not-quite school a year ago, with a degree in anthropology.  He'd embarked on some kind of internship somewhere in the jungles of South America, helping poor underprivileged peoples or something—Lila really didn't care about the details—and was back only a few days ago—which meant that practically no one had seen him for quite some time.  Lila herself hadn't seen him since her wedding, so this was to be an interesting meeting.

In honor of it, she'd put on her best gingham dress (she despised gingham, but it was just the sort of thing that would tickle Arnold's fancy), and let her long, rich hair down, falling prettily around her face.  She'd been perched on the porch railing, in an impractical moment of idling, when they'd pulled up the long dusty road in Arnie's noisy old jalopy.

The minute the car had stopped, she'd flown to the passenger side, bare feet tripping daintily along in the dust, and waited eagerly for Arnold to get out.  He'd uncoiled his long frame from the interior of the car, and she wrapped him in a hug, kissing him on the cheek in a not-so-very-platonic manner.

"Arnold!  It's been so long!" she'd cooed, batting her eyelashes at him.  Yes, it was over the top, but he'd always been dense, and Arnie of course wouldn't notice.

"It's good to see you, too, Lila," he'd replied, sounding a little taken aback by her forthright greeting.

She stepped back to study him, and was surprised.  In high school he'd been good-looking enough, but not what she'd term "handsome."  Perhaps she hadn't watched him closely enough, but at any rate, the jungle seemed to have agreed with him.  As always, the resemblance between the two cousins was striking and off-putting, the subtle differences making you look twice.

Both had unruly golden hair—she supposed it ran in the family—but Arnold was darker, more like wheat than Arnie's, and even more unkempt, despite his best efforts.  Inch for inch they were probably the same height, but Arnie was, and always had been, more solidly built, mostly due to his exertions on the farm.  Their faces were similar, running along clearly familial lines, but Arnie's had no laughter in it, just a lifetime of toil.  Mostly, though, the difference was in the eyes.  Her husband's were practical, a solid, no-nonsense brown, and steady.  Arnold's were far larger, an enchanting shade of green, and filled with so many different things—courage, intelligence, humor, determination.  There was sorrow there, and hurt…but mostly there was a dreaming quality, a far-away gaze that even at the height of his infatuation had never seemed to include her, as much as she had wanted it to.  Now, after four years of college and a year in a world of people far worse off than he was, there was something of the steadiness Arnie possessed, too, and Lila liked it.  She couldn't suppress a fleeting thought that she had married the wrong cousin.

He was gazing at the rickety old house, now, looking far away again.  "Arnold?" she asked uncertainly.

His gaze snapped back to her.  "Sorry," he replied.  "I've never been here before.  But you know when you feel like you've seen something in a dream, a long time ago?"

"Let's go inside," Arnie had said from the other side of the car, making both Arnold and Lila jump.

At dinner, Arnold had regaled a stoic Arnie and an attentive Lila with stories about his internship.  Lila had outdone herself in the flirting department, leaning towards Arnold, cooing when she talked, smiling her special, secret smiles that were only for him—but Arnold proved as dense as his cousin, not noticing a thing.  It was impossibly frustrating to Lila.  Was she losing her touch?

She would have to press the issue.  Arnie went to bed early, as usual—a farmer had to catch what little sleep he could—but Lila insisted that she wasn't tired, and that she wanted to stay up and catch up on old times with Arnold.  Arnie had shrugged noncommittally and disappeared into their bedroom.

Lila and Arnold had talked for a little while, but their conversation soon lagged.  They had little in common besides their childhood together, and considering that Lila had only moved to Brooklyn when she was nine, and she and Arnold had had very little contact after she'd broken his heart three years later, that wasn't much.  Eventually, they ran out of things to say to each other.

In Lila's world, this was always where things got physical.

"I guess we'd better go to bed," she said, standing up.  "I'll just go let the cats out and put out the lights."  They had a handful of cats around the farm to keep mice and rats out of the stores.  Arnie wanted them to stay outdoors, but Lila liked cats, and let them in the house whenever they pleased.  The tiny bit of frustrated maternity in her (for Lila didn't really want the children she could never have) was expressed in her coddling of the barn cats.  At any rate, they liked to roam around outside at night, so she always let them out.

Arnold offered to join her, as she had known he would, and of course she accepted.  They walked through the kitchen, and Lila opened the door, letting the cats slink by her.  She turned—and got caught in the doorway with Arnold, pressed tightly against him, his hands trapped in indiscreet places.  Now how had _that_ happened?

Lila gave a tiny smile and reached up, pulling Arnold's head down for a kiss.  Their lips locked, and her hands wove themselves into his thick, unmanageable hair.  At first he was frozen, startled, but then his hands found their way to her waist, and he began to kiss her back.  Lila felt a thrill of conquest, along with the growing tinglings of desire.  Even after all these years, she still had Arnold right where she wanted him…

Or not.  Even as these thoughts crossed her mind, even as she reached to unbutton his shirt, Arnold pulled back.

"Lila, no," he said, stepping away from her.  "We can't do this."

"Why not?" she replied, her voice low and sultry.

"Because you're married.  To my cousin."

"So?"  She let her hands fall on his chest again.  He jerked, as if she'd hit him, and took her hands away gently.

"So everything," he insisted, keeping his voice down.  "This wouldn't be right for any of us."

She looked up at him, giving him _the look_—the look that no man alive had yet been able to resist.  "Don't you want to have a little fun?" she asked seductively.

He sighed.  "Yes," he said, after a pause.  "I'm only human, aren't I?  But it's not worth it.  I couldn't live with it on my conscience."  He sighed again.  "Let's just go to bed, okay?"

She had failed.  She had tried to seduce a man, and failed.  She was a disgrace to her name.

Lila felt her world crumbling around her.  She tried to hold onto it, desperately.  "I could make sure you wouldn't regret it," she tried.

Arnold was already walking away.  He stopped, and looked at her.

"No, you couldn't," he replied.  "It would be wrong.  To you, to Arnie, to me…"  He paused.  "Honestly, if you must know, I'm…well, I'm seeing someone.  And it's new, but it's…it's serious, it its own way, and its important to me, and I won't do anything—_anything_—to mess it up.  To hurt her.  I'm sorry."

He turned to walk away again.  Again, Lila called after him.

"Do I know her?" she asked.  She didn't know why she asked it.

Did he smile?  "Yes, you do, actually," he said.  "You do know her."

"Who?" Lila asked softly, half-fearing the answer.

Now there was no question of Arnold's smile—the smile of a man in love.

"Helga Pataki."

It is a bitter memory to recall.  Lila sneers in disgust and turns away from the window, away from her memory of her only failure.  That Arnold.  What a waste of perfectly good manflesh.

She scoops her purse up off the floor.  Rummaging through it, she finds a flattened box of cigarettes, the cheapest brand in existence.  There's one left, a broken one.  She lights it anyway, and it dangles forlornly from her perfect lips as she sinks into her tiny, moth-eaten sofa.

She'd smoked since she arrived on Arnie's farm, but after the encounter with Arnold—he'd left the next day—she'd practically lived on the things.  She'd also gone into seductive overdrive, as if to prove that she wasn't a failure, that her beauty wasn't fading, that she wasn't growing old.  She'd made it through all of the neighboring men—and some women—and even the minister, without a qualm.

But when she found herself setting her sights on their next-door neighbor's _son_, who was _fifteen_, she realized she had to get away from the farm.

At that point, she'd been on the farm eight years.  She was twenty-seven years old, and the only thing she could look forward to was growing older, and fat, and ugly.  Her fiery hair would dim, and wrinkles would hide the brightness of her eyes, and her figure would go to some other, less worthy girl, for her moment to shine.

Well, not Lila.  Not the succubus.  No, she wasn't going out like that.  Succubae didn't age.  They didn't lose their touch, or grow old, or ugly.  And neither would she.

She didn't say a word to Arnie about leaving.  She'd just packed a bag, taken some money from their joint account, and boarded a Greyhound heading east.  She needed to be back in New York again, it was that simple.  The city had worked its way into her blood.

Arnie had no real way of tracking her.  And yet she'd entertained idle daydreams of him hiring private detectives to ferret her out, of him demanding at the bus depot where the beautiful redheaded woman had gone, following her to the city, and begging her to return to him.  But that wasn't Arnie's way, and she knew it.  He would simply assume that if she had left, she didn't want to be followed.  He'd nurse whatever heartbreak he felt silently and privately, and eventually probably marry again, hopefully to someone who could bear him children.  So it was really for the best, for him.  Still, it hurt that he hadn't tried to bring her back.

And as for Lila?  She'd simply struggled along, making ends meet, always with an eye to her appearance.  Young and beautiful, beautiful and young.  Ageless.  Timeless.  That was how she needed to be.

She sighs and takes a meditative drag on her cigarette, looking around her room.  She hasn't been here long.  Always on the go, that's her.  After all, Arnie was her first husband—he certainly wasn't her last.  And even if she doesn't marry, she finds ways to get by.  She discovered a taste, long ago, for large halls filled with antique mahogany furniture, and she finds her way into those types of settings quite easily, when she wishes.

She wonders idly how old she it.  She lost track some time ago.  She knows she must be in about her mid-thirties, by now, but she looks twenty.  Maybe twenty-five.  She takes care of her appearance religiously—it's the only religion she knows anymore—but she that's not all of it.  She's been blessed with seeming youth, looking younger than she is.  And she _never_ reveals her age.  She's not even sure when her birthday is.  But sometimes she feels old…older than time…

Sometimes she's confused about who she is.  She feels like maybe she'd lived before, or somewhere else.  Sometimes she thinks that maybe she really _is_ Lilith, the demoness, the first wife of Adam.  Sometimes she knows how crazy that kind of thought it.  Still, she wonders.

It hits her, suddenly, that she'd like to find love, if it's possible.  She doesn't know if it is.  She has no real experience in the field, to begin with.  And she doesn't know if it would be an altogether pleasant experience.  Helga and Arnold make it look easy, but it isn't.  She knows.  It's her trade—the illusion of love.  The reality is harder to come by.

She's been close twice.  Maybe she could have loved Arnold, all those years ago.  She certainly thought she'd loved Arnie, for a little while, at least.  And Jack, her second husband…he'd been quite charming.  But none of them had really moved her soul—if she had one.

Still, maybe someone waits for her, in a quiet corner of Manhattan she hasn't yet visited.  She has a playful vision of a man sitting in a bar on the Upper West Side, staring at shot-glass half full of amber liquid, waiting for her, Lila.  Just waiting.  Maybe there's someone with laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, with perfect teeth and a long, lean body.  A someone who loves Korean food and seventies rock, who likes to dance and doesn't ask a lot of questions about people's pasts.  She thinks she could love a man like that.

Then again, maybe it doesn't matter.

She turns to the wall behind her to survey her one non-appearance splurge, the one item she'll never part with.  It's a print, an old painting, where the women were sensuous and dumpy at the same time, trailing garlands or scarves behind their naked bodies.  One of those women dominates the painting, bare and unabashed in her nakedness.  A snake is coiled about her body sensuously, its head nestling beneath her chin.  The woman is beautiful in an inexplicable way, beautiful and more frightening than the powerful serpent coiled about her.  Her dark eyes gleam—her body is real and surreal at the same time.  She has red hair.

It's true, then.  A succubus never dies.

Standing alone in the dingy apartment, Lilith-in-Lila smiles.  She needs no forbidden apple to learn the truth, the truth that keeps her going.

Who needs love when you can live forever?

What did you think?  Love it?  Hate it?  Just confused?  Let me know!  If you like it, I may do more short little pieces about other minor characters on the show, probably just girls.  Feel free to suggest characters you'd like to see, although I do have my next one in mind already…  If you hate it, that's cool too…just be gentle, lol.  I know this isn't how Lila is normally portrayed, but I got to thinking about her name the other night, and this idea came to me.  I think there's room for it on the show…she's not a very developed character, which is why she's fun to work with.  (Random Aside: There's a very cool look at a Lila/Lilith character in Piers Anthony's _Incarnations of Immortality_ series, especially _Wielding a Red Sword_ (the fourth book) and _For Love of Evil_ (the sixth).  It's sci-fi/fantasy, and she's a demon, but it's a very cool alternate universe kinda thing and an interesting look at theology (They replace God!  With a chick!  A dead one!  It's wild!).  Wow, I'm in a recommendy-kind of mood tonight, aren't I?)  (Yes, those parentheses are correct, if overboard.)  Anyway, please review.  I'm outie…


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